


I could have loved you like a planet

by powerfulowl (StuckyFlangst)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, Graphic Description of Corpses, Identity Porn, M/M, Minor referenced Sam Wilson/Steve Rogers (FWB), Nomad Steve Rogers, Past Bucky Barnes/Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Top Steve Rogers, Wakanda (Marvel), Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:34:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27060526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StuckyFlangst/pseuds/powerfulowl
Summary: Steve got his first tattoo in Brooklyn. There were no shortage of tattoo parlours there, after all.Yes, everything had changed, but his heart remembered Bucky better here than anywhere else. Sitting in Prospect Park on an Autumn day he felt grief rising warm in his belly and, for the first time since Bucky fell, he allowed it to fill his chest, his throat and spill out from his eyes.Everything had changed, but this was still the same place, the same bit of earth where he had met Bucky Barnes, where he had loved him. And Bucky had loved Steve, with all his resentment and anger and scowling.Steve’s body might be like the buildings – it could change almost beyond recognition. But his love for Bucky continued like the earth.-----The Winter Soldier's mask doesn't fall off on the bridge, and he makes his own escape from Hydra. Captain America gets his stories tattooed onto his skin. The Accords still happen, things still fall apart.a.k.a. Nomad and the Winter Soldier
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 41
Kudos: 178





	1. Chapter 1

Steve and Natasha stood silently in the bank vault, surveying the wreckage around them. The room was cold, but the stench of blood was laced with the stink of decay. The three bodies closest to the chair were the worst. One’s arm was torn entirely from its body, face and head a bloody pulp. Another’s head was twisted – neck snapped clean in two. The third had a bloody hole ripped half through its chest.

After that, the Soldier must have got a gun. The others – about ten in all – had been shot precisely and fatally in the head or heart.

Steve stared at the chair, breath loud in his ears.

‘In many ways,’ said Natasha, ‘he showed admirable restraint.’

Steve’s eyes flickered across the restraints, the arcs of dark metal, the space for a head to fit.

‘What do you think –?’ Steve broke off, licking his lips, fingers flexing around the shield hanging loosely by his side.

Natasha thinned her lips slightly.

‘They use it to wipe him.’

Steve nodded. Of course. Of course they did that. Steve imagined that it must have hurt. He still remembered the serum, the Vita-rays. Once. Only once he’d had to endure that. His heart still hitched sometimes when he thought of it.

Those two huge, cold lights would have shone on the Soldier as he screamed.

‘He got away from them though.’ Steve looked dispassionately at the mangled bodies, the smashed screens around the chair.

No Peggy or Dr Erskine when the Soldier stepped out of the chair each time. How often had they wiped him? Years? Natasha said the legends had been around for years.

‘Are we going to go after him?’ Natasha turned to Steve with an inscrutable gaze.

‘Let’s take a bit more of a look around,’ Steve turned away from the chair.

The vault itself held little. Natasha systematically worked her way through the lock boxes. Found jewels, money, obscure trinkets, papers. Carefully catalogued and stashed them away.

Steve explored the rooms along the hallway. Here in the heart of the smashed Hydra cell no one had been left to reset security, so the false print on Steve’s thumb, copied from the dead body of Alexander Pierce, opened each of the doors.

‘Natasha,’ Steve called after he opened the second door. She appeared by his side.

‘What’s this?’ He pointed at the large metal sarcophagus in the centre of the room. It stood mostly upright and had a small window. It was not powered up, but various cords ran out of the back.

Natasha prowled around it, touching the metal, examining the controls.

‘A cryo chamber,’ she said finally. ‘They must have transported him in this. Kept him on ice when they weren’t using him.’

Steve closed his eyes briefly, body shuddering. _You’re warm, you’re warm_ , he repeated to himself.

The Winter Soldier. Steve remembered watching him skid smooth and unwavering along the tarmac on the bridge, throwing sparks from the ground. The force of his punches blossoming hot under Steve’s skin. The ice of his gaze.

‘Are we going after him?’ Natasha asked again.

Steve led them back into the vault, putting his shield into its harness.

Natasha was still silently, invisibly nursing a bullet wound from the Soldier’s gun. She didn’t heal as fast as Steve – though faster than most.

Steve forced himself to look over the litter of bodies, think back on the destruction on the bridge. The Soldier moving tireless and single-minded as a robot, with the grace and swagger of dancer.

Steve breathed out slowly. The Soldier’s metal arm had been cool around his neck. Had whirred with its own voice, even though the Soldier never spoke. Steve wondered why the Soldier hadn’t tried harder to kill him. Maybe that was never the plan.

‘If we go after him, to what end? What’s going to happen? Do we kill him? Bring him before a jury of his peers?’ Steve rubbed a dirty hand across his face and gestured at the chair. ‘Look at this. He was their weapon. They controlled him.’

Natasha hummed. ‘However they made him, he’s dangerous. Whoever he was, he’s not anymore.’

Steve sighed and walked over to the chair. He stared at it for a moment then pulled his shield off and sank down into the seat.

‘Even if he’s not who he was, he’s never had a chance to decide who he is now.’

Natasha poked one of the bodies with her toes. ‘It seems he decided to do this.’

Steve forced himself to look hard at the disfigured face closest to him. The face of a Hydra agent.

‘Who doesn’t want to punch Nazis?’ Steve raised an eyebrow. ‘Particularly Nazi prison guards.’

Natasha smirked slightly.

‘But who’s to say he’ll be able to tell who’s good and who’s bad? He could do a lot of damage, Steve.’ She indicated around the room.

‘We did a lot of damage Natasha.’ Steve sighed and leaned his head back, imagining being trapped here, those arms descending either side of his skull.

‘I’m at least 98 per cent sure we were right this time.’

Steve smiled.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I have a proposal. We don’t go after him. If he does something bad, we’ll hear about it, and then we’ll go after him.’

‘So we’ll treat him like any other regular enhanced person?’ Natasha paraphrased. ‘And not try to hold him accountable for any of his other actions?’

Steve stood up out of the chair, feeling cold in his bones.

‘I’m not a judge,’ Steve shrugged.

Natasha narrowed his eyes at him, then shrugged as well.

‘I guess if a brainwashed super-assassin has a jury of peers it’s probably us.’

Steve laughed and rubbed the stubble on his chin.

‘Sure. Let him go,’ Natasha said, giving Steve a _very_ small smile.

‘So, this was the last DC facility?’ he asked.

Natasha nodded.

‘Where to now?’ Steve asked.

‘Road trip?’ Natasha suggested, leading the way out of the vault. ‘We can talk about it at dinner. I think Sam’s cooking.’

‘I think I might grow a beard,’ Steve mused as he followed her.

\-----

_The Widow and the Captain had found the vault. The Soldier watched them leave. He wondered if they would try to hunt him down now they had cleared all the bases here._

_He should leave, he knew. But he wanted to see the Captain again._

_He had a new suit. Dark blue with combat pants. The shape of a white star still on the chest, white stripes._

_Shame about the tights, he thought._

_The Soldier shook his head a little. No memories, really, but strange thoughts would pop into his head._

_Like a name. He needed a name._

_And to leave DC._

_The Captain and the Widow would be leaving soon, he knew. Perhaps with the guy with the wings. Falcon. Okay. He knew his name was Falcon._

_The Soldier rubbed his eyes._

_He needed to sleep again. Years he’d spent sleeping, cold._

_The Captain would know what that was like._

_In the museum he had seen a face that was like his and a name._

_He didn’t know if he could take it for himself._

_But lots of people were called James, right?_

\-----

Steve got his first tattoo in Brooklyn. There were no shortage of tattoo parlours there, after all.

Yes, everything had changed, but his heart remembered Bucky better here than anywhere else. Sitting in Prospect Park on an Autumn day he felt grief rising warm in his belly and, for the first time since Bucky fell, he allowed it to fill his chest, his throat and spill out from his eyes.

Everything had changed, but this was still the same place, the same bit of earth where he had met Bucky Barnes, where he had loved him. And Bucky had loved Steve, with all his resentment and anger and scowling.

Steve’s body might be like the buildings – it could change almost beyond recognition. But his love for Bucky continued like the earth.

So Steve sat in the sun and cried, and then went and had Bucky’s face tattooed onto his right arm. Bucky’s face, smiling. Done in fine black lines from a sketch of Steve’s he carried tucked in his wallet.

The tattoo artist, Miguel, was impressed. Steve healed so fast he could do it all in one sitting, and the ink stayed.

And after that in Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Kansas City, Ann Arbour, Oakland, Memphis, El Paso, Atlanta, New Orleans. The Hydra tour of the USA took them round the country – Natasha, Sam, sometimes Clint, sometimes Tony if they needed more firepower. And when they had a quiet moment Steve would slip away to an artist he found on Instagram. Sometimes with his own sketch for them to work with, sometimes for a quick piece of flash before they blew town.

His mother’s name over a St Brigid’s cross on his left arm, a triskele on his shoulder above Bucky’s face, a blue, red and white nautical star on his back, a sailor’s heart with a knife through it and Bucky’s name on his left pectoral muscle. And around them all, slowly growing, vines and leaves wrapping round his arms, down his chest, growing from a trunk up his spine, branches reaching over his shoulder blades.

Natasha rolled her eyes at him whenever he appeared with another one. But he finally got her to crack when he showed her the black widow perched on his left shoulder after a particularly nasty raid on a base near Santa Fe.

She gave him a brief, crushing hug and glared at him before curling onto her bed in their small twin room and pretending to look at the next day’s intel. There was a falcon perched on his other shoulder, and Steve rested down on the bed with a self-satisfied smile.

Natasha kept her ear to the ground. Someone was hitting Hydra bases in Europe while they were working their way through the US.

‘Still only hitting Nazis as far as I can see,’ Steve said when she showed him pictures from a base in Hungary. The bodies had mostly been taken down by single shots. A couple had managed to fight and their faces were bloodied, some limbs broken. Only the head scientist was more badly hurt – teeth missing and fingers broken.

‘I wonder if this was revenge, or information,’ Natasha said, pointing at the man.

‘I guess we’ll never know,’ said Steve, taking a final look.

Then they’re on their way to Europe too, in search of the sceptre.

In the snowy woods Steve wondered if the Soldier would join them, looked back over his shoulder. He was reminded for a moment of missions during the war, the sense of Bucky on his six, watching his back, each shot accurate and deadly.

Maybe that’s why later, in South Africa, when the Witch reaches into his mind what he sees is he and Bucky dancing together, like they used to in their tiny apartment, Bucky laughing and telling Steve not to watch his feet so much, except Steve is big, like he is now, and he’s smiling too, not scowling at Bucky. Now he knows how good he has it.

\-----

_James was sitting in a café in Riga when TV screens started coming on and filling with images of Novi Grad lifting into the air. He still_

_He’d watched the Captain through his scope when they took the base with the sceptre. For a moment it was almost as if those blue eyes saw right into him._

_He didn’t want to go near that stone. It was worse than the chair._

_He thought they would destroy it._

_He stood up and left the café; hoped the Captain could make things right again._

\-----

‘I’m not signing these Tony,’ Steve throws the papers down.

The room is tense and heavy, full of the images – of New York, Sokovia, Lagos. Beside him, Wanda is tense, hands clenched on her knees. Steve places his large, calloused hand over her small, soft fist.

Who were they to judge her? Those men in suits, whose power is cold hearts and colder money, not the hot fire that burns in her.

‘Cap, I know you don’t like being told what to do, but Ross is right. We need to be put in check. We need limitations.’ Tony paces around the room, arms crossed over his chest.

Behind him, the image of Charles Spencer sits still on the screen. Wanda looks at it with sad eyes.

Like she doesn’t understand, Steve thinks. Like they don’t all understand that it’s never just the bad guys that dies.

‘If we don’t sign these Accords, they’ll try another way. They’re going to want to control us somehow,’ Tony continues.

Steve’s eyes flick over to Natasha. He can tell this argument will sway her more – pragmatism.

Sam on the other hand is angry. _Lojack us_. Steve will need to ask later what that means.

‘Tony, look at these documents. They will be able to tell us _not_ to do things. Be able to tell us _to do_ things. We won’t be able to decide ourselves anymore.’

‘And who says that we have the right to decide, Cap? Who says we make such good decisions?’ Tony paces more, dragging the weight of Sokovia around.

‘And who says that governments, even world governments make better decisions than individual human beings, Tony?’ Steve feels his heart pumping. ‘You want to be deployed like a nuclear weapon in some rogue state? You want to be sent after terrorists who may be freedom fighters in some other language? You want to be told not to save New York from aliens – let it be nuked instead?’

Now Wanda is placing her other hand, cool and strong, over the top of Steve’s.

‘If we don’t _all_ sign it will weaken our position, Cap.’ Steve hates the nickname, hates the rank.

‘We don’t have a position, Tony. _I_ have a position which is that you cannot trust these people to make decisions for you. _You_ have a position that it won’t be your fault if someone else makes you do it. That you can’t be negligent if somebody tells you not to help.’

Steve’s phone buzzes and he pulls it out. Fuck. Peggy. He throws his head back for a moment, squeezing his eyes shut.

He had asked her, once, on a good day, if she knew – about Zola, about the Winter Soldier. On the screens in Jersey Zola had called him _The American Solider_. Peggy had looked at him with sad, soft eyes.

‘I’m sorry, Steve,’ she said. ‘I know – I know what Zola did to Bucky in Azzano. I did find out that – that he had been recruited. But there were so many battles to fight at the time – I couldn’t –’.

Steve had rested his hand on hers – so delicate now, such paper-thin skin.

‘It’s okay Pegs.’

‘I was always better at compromises than you Steve.’ She smiled at him.

‘Everyone is better at compromises than me, Peggy,’ Steve smiled back, too tired to be angry with her, when it was all so long ago.

He didn’t mention the Soldier, the chair, the cryo chamber. He didn’t want to know how many secrets she knew.

In the end, Natasha stays. But she sets Steve, Sam, Wanda and Vision up with numerous fake IDs and sends them off with hugs. Steve gives her a hand knitted Captain America sweater and she scowls at him.

‘You’re always with me,’ he points to his spider, ‘so now I’m with you when you want me.’

‘You are so lame,’ she rolls her eyes.

‘That reminds me,’ Steve asks Sam as they walk towards the boarding gate, ‘what does _lojack_ mean?’

In Lima, Steve gets another tattoo – a little witch in red on a broomstick with bristles made of flames. Wanda laughs so much it’s totally worth it.

\-----

_The Captain obviously can’t fix everything, James thinks to himself._

_He worries his lip as he sits in a bar in Vietnam. He’s not ready for the Hydra cells in China yet. Maybe never will be, with just himself._

_Maybe he could go to South America._

_They don’t call him Captain anymore. On the internet they’ve started calling him Nomad – tracing appearances – real and rumoured – around the world._

_James saw a photo of him – bearded and scruffy, wearing a dark navy suit with no white or red, just the shape of a star on his chest, standing on a pile of rubble. He had a scarf around his neck and fingerless gloves. His boots and suit were scuffed._

_James’ finger tingled to feel that beard, that hair beneath his fingers. His skin was convinced that the hair would be soft, even though it was darker now, than it used to be._

_His skin, his lips remembered many things he refused to name._

_\-----_

Steve had finished with the leaves. He was onto the flowers now. Roses, orchids, frangipanis. Colours swirling through the greens and browns.

He did a sketch of Bucky in the style of a sailor pin up girl, wearing his army cap, tattooed on his upper thigh, below his hipbone.

Sam says he needs to get out more, but Steve was content with their occasional friends with benefits situation on nights when they share a room, not minding when Sam goes out on the town dancing, finds some other partner.

Today they’re walking through the jungle. Steve’s suit is heavy and damp. A base in Brazil. As they so often are it’s hidden in a hollow – a concrete bunker smothered by foliage. When Wanda pulls the door off, though, armed agents pour out and they’re fighting. Steve’s shield slices through the air, through flesh, Sam’s on the roof above.

Sam shouts something and Steve turns but before he can swing at any of the five men behind him, bursting out of some other hidden entrance in the green, they drop one by one. Each taken down by a perfect, clean shot.

Steve doesn’t have a moment, so he turns back to the fight, but all the time he’s trying to play back the wall of jungle, find a face. Around him men keep falling. Particularly those behind him.

They clear the base and destroy it.

The jungle doesn’t give up any secrets.

It’s in the Andes Steve sees him. Perched up on a rocky mountain face. His hair is still long, but pulled back out of his face in a tight bun. He is wearing all black, and his arm glints in the bright sunlight. He wears a black mask.

Steve salutes him and he tilts his head. It’s 1944 and Bucky is in the trees behind him.

He likes the Soldier. Whoever he is.

‘Was that the Winter Soldier?’ Sam asks, landing beside Steve.

‘Yeah,’ Steve says with a little smile.

‘Is he our mysterious sniper saviour.’

‘Yeah,’ Steve says.

‘Have you known this all along?’ Sam has his disapproving hands on his hips. He could totally be Captain America. A disappointment stance is a key element of the role.

‘ _Know_ is a strong word, Sam.’ Steve gives him the sheepish puppy dog eyes.

‘Man, you totally have a crush on the Winter Soldier.’

Wanda and Vision emerge out into the cold air. There’s a smell of snow in the air.

‘Maybe he doesn’t like being called that anymore,’ Steve says. ‘Maybe he has a new name.’

Sam just shakes his head.

‘Empanadas?’ asks Wanda.

‘Sure, maybe Steve’s _boyfriend_ can join us,’ Sam digs his elbows into Steve’s ribs.

Wanda looks up to the now empty mountainside and squeezes Steve’s hand gently.

\-----

_Nomad. James looks at him through the scope._

_James doesn’t have a call-name anymore. He’s not a villain or a hero. There’s no one to call him anything._

_Steve. The parts of him that long, that want more, want to call the man in the blue uniform Steve._

_James tries to ignore them, but he knows in the end that’s why he’s following, why he’s perched here watching, trying to keep him safe._

_Dumbass always forgets to watch his back. Never had to watch his own back._

_When he salutes from down on the valley floor he’s just Steve Steve Steve. Nothing else._

_James’ longing is bigger and older than these mountains._

_The wind is cold._

_For a moment he meets the Witch’s eye._

\-----

Natasha appears, appropriately, in Russia, in Vladivostok, where they’re renting a house. She refuses to tell them what happened. She says only that they asked her to do something.

‘Didn’t ask anyone else. Thought I wouldn’t mind, wouldn’t say no.’ She’s wearing the Captain America sweater and Steve scoops her up in the biggest, tightest hug he can manage without crushing her. Which is actually pretty tight.

Everyone crowds around Natasha. Sam manages to sneak a kiss on her head and even Vision places a hand on her arm.

‘You gotta strip for me now, Rogers,’ she pokes his chest. ‘I want to see your new art. Shirt off.’

‘You’ll need him to lose more than the shirt,’ Sam grins. ‘He’s even got some tramp stamps now.’

So Steve does strip off – down to his boxers. Natasha walks around him and traces the branches that reach up and hug his ribs, the roots that wind down around his legs. Splashes of colour from the flowers, the birds, the random doodles. His skin is still white underneath, a trail of dark hair runs down his chest, and down from his belly button.

They all whistle and tease him and he blushes pink. They drink vodka into the evening and don’t talk about Hydra, or the UN, or the others they left behind.

The next day Steve goes out alone, trying to search out a tattoo place. He’s down near the port, looking out across the ocean, when the Soldier appears beside him.

Steve turns. He’s wearing a mask – but just an ordinary cloth mask, like he’s worried about the flu, or air pollution. His hair is pulled back with a red silk scrunchie. It looks longer, healthier, than it had when they fought. He’s wearing dark sunglasses as well. Steve is sure, though, that he his handsome.

Steve’s heart beats a little faster at the sense of the warm body beside him – so solid and strong. Wrapped in black leather jacket and tight black jeans.

‘I have a favour to ask you,’ the Soldier says, his voice low and smooth, strangely unaccented. Like he is from all places and none.

‘A favour?’ Steve echoes, looking from the corner of his eye at the jut of cheekbones, the curve of a neck.

‘There is a book somewhere – I think here in Russia – in one of the bases. A red book.’

The icy ocean churns against concrete.

‘It has – _words_ in it. That can make me the Soldier again. Make me the weapon.’ Steve’s enhanced hearing can make out the slight hitch in the words, the uneven catch of the man’s breath.

‘You’re not the Soldier anymore?’ Steve asks. ‘What should I call you then?’

The man pauses for a while and gives a little shrug.

‘No one really calls me anything.’

‘What do you call yourself?’

‘James,’ says the man. So softly.

Steve’s own breath catches a little in his throat, thinking of his James, his Bucky, who also had such soft brown hair.

‘Well, James,’ Steve says, ‘what would you like me to do with this book if we find it?’

‘Destroy it,’ James replies, voice husky. ‘But I’m afraid I can’t be as of much help to you here as elsewhere, until it’s gone.’

‘You trust me to do this?’ Steve asks, turning his body towards James, as if to warm himself at a fire. The wind off the sea is cold, but James runs hot, like Steve.

Maybe James smiles a little, Steve thinks he can hear it in his voice. ‘You and the Widow didn’t try to find me. You let me decide who to be.’

‘Of course, of course we’ll destroy it,’ Steve says.

‘Thank you, _Nomad_ ,’ James says, turning towards him, loose tendrils of hair whipping around his face.

Steve laughs. ‘If you’re James, you can call me Steve.’

Steve holds out his hand and after a moment, a beat, James takes it, pressing his leather gloved palm against Steve’s skin. They hold there, not really shaking hands.

‘Nice to meet you, Steve,’ James gives a small squeeze and then releases; turns and disappears into the city again.

Steve cradles his right hand and brings it up to his face. It smells faintly of leather.

\-----

_He is the only one you can trust with this. The Widow too – but it is Steve (he gave you his name) who showed her kindness._

_James wanders through the city, mask off now. He will return to his hotel. He will follow them at a distance. Steve will look for the book._

_James knows that even then it won’t be the end. Words are not hard to remember. He is sure people out there still know them._

_He remembers the warmth of Steve’s hand. His skin cries out from underneath his glove._

_Longing pulses but James knows that flesh memory is not enough. He is not who he was._

_But your love endured anyway, comes the whisper behind his ribs, why not his?_

_He must shake this off._

_He is so far from the bright-eyed boy, the sad soldier._

_Sometimes he dreams of dancing._

\-----

It’s Natasha who finds the book. She is very good at finding things.

‘We need to destroy it,’ Steve says as soon as his catches sight of the red cover, the handwritten pages.

‘We should read it first,’ Natasha says. ‘There could be intel in there.’

Steve shakes his head. ‘No, we can’t know. We can’t know the words.’

Natasha stares at him.

‘It would give us power over him,’ she says. ‘We could stop him easily if we needed to.’

‘Yes,’ says Steve. ‘Exactly.’

Sam sidles up. ‘You’re not going to out stubborn him this time, Nat. Steve has a crush on our murderous ponytail friend.’ He grins and bumps his shoulder into Steve’s.

There hadn’t been much fighting today. Lots of paper files Vision was scanning. Old, empty cells. Wanda visited each one and pressed a hand to the hard mattresses, the stained floors.

Natasha hands Steve the book, narrowing her eyes at him.

‘I knew him,’ she says abruptly.

Steve stares at her.

‘When I was in the Red Room. He trained us, for a while.’ Natasha shifts almost imperceptibly.

‘Why didn’t you say anything, back in the vault?’ Steve asks.

‘I didn’t want to – to let it affect your decision.’ Natasha presses her lips together. She is blond at the moment, hair cut into a bob. ‘He trained us to fight. He wasn’t kind to us, but he wasn’t cruel. They called him The American.’

‘Like Zola,’ Steve says.

‘Yes,’ Natasha sighs a little. ‘He always has a lot of knives.’ She looks around the concrete room, down the hallway where the cells are.

‘He seemed so strong, but in the end, he was just like us. A weapon for them to use. Perhaps that was why he wasn’t cruel.’

They take the book outside. It’s summer, but still cold. They are in a clearing in the forest, and the base is surrounded by a meadow of flowers. Steve will sketch some later, he thinks.

Steve puts the book down on a bare rock and Wanda raises her hand. The red mist curls around the book and is flames briefly and is ash.

Steve looks into the trees – the silvery trunks stretching away. He doesn’t know if James is watching. The forest seems fitting for him.

It’s not until Moscow that he comes to Steve. They all have their own rooms in a fancy hotel. A celebration of sorts – making it all the way here from the east. Steve is lying on the ridiculously opulent bed in sweatpants and a t-shirt when the window opens.

Steve can smell him – leather and soap. Steve sits up and watches as James hops onto the floor and closes the window behind him.

‘I thought they didn’t open,’ Steve says.

James smiles. His mouth is uncovered but a black mask covers the top half of his face. Steve’s eyes trace the line of his jaw, the full curve of his lips. His hair is out, falling in soft waves to his shoulders. He’s wearing a pair of black sweatpants with stripes down the side and a black hoodie.

Steve sits up in the bed, heart beating a heat pooling in his gut. James just looks so soft and _touchable_ , not wrapped in armour, or leather. He’s big – not as tall as Steve but his thighs are thicker, his waist.

Steve’s cock stirs between his legs.

‘We um, we found it. Wanda destroyed it.’ Steve kneads the quilt with his hands and licks his lips.

‘I know. Thank you.’ James takes a few hesitant steps away from the window, towards the bed.

Steve can hear James’ breath too, quick between his pink, full lips. His own chest rises and falls.

James pauses, shadowed eyes flickering beneath the mask. Steve can see that it’s made of fabric that clings tightly to his skin. It looks like a superhero mask from an old comic book, but covers more of his face, disguises more.

‘I don’t know why I came,’ James says, voice pained and breathy.

Steve reaches out a hand. James clenches and unclenches his gloved fingers a few times, staring at Steve. His whole body seems to quiver, and Steve’s quivers in response. _Yearning_. Steve _yearns_ for him. He doesn’t understand. He didn’t think he could want someone like this again. But here this assassin villain _broken man lost in time like you_ calls to his flesh his straining heart beneath his ribs.

James pulls off his gloves one by one and drops them on the floor. He reaches out with both hands – one flesh one metal – and Steve takes them both.

And _yes yes yes_ Steve’s skin sings as he hauls James onto the bed with him, pulling him down so James straddles his thighs. Steve can feel the press of James’ ass against his legs and Steve’s cock fills, tenting his sweatpants.

But that seems almost irrelevant next to the feel of James’ hands on his cheeks, tracing his eyebrows, his nose, his lips, trailing down his neck and running across his collarbone.

Their breath moves in quick unison – broad chests rising and falling.

James leans down, hair like a scented curtain on either side of his masked face and presses his lips to Steve’s.

And Steve thought he would never be kissed like this again. Soft at first, James capturing his top lip in gentle presses. Then his tongue flicking along the seam of Steve’s lip. Steve parting for him and their tongues tentatively flickering over one another. The warmth and heat and wet of James’ mouth. James’ hand cupping Steve’s face. Steve’s hands on James’ hips, squeezing.

Gently at first, so gently, then rising in both of them some tide held back for too long, for eternities frozen and cold, now lava rising from the depths of the earth to spill in bruising kisses, teeth biting tongues, Steve squeezing bruises into James’ hips as they begin to move. James pressing his torso to Steve’s, the electric jolt of their hard cocks pressing against one another for the first time.

And then they’re both thrusting Steve feels the rough rub on fabric against his aching, leaking dick. Feels the matching length of James pressed against him, James’ ass grinding down on his thighs.

James’ hands are on Steve’s chest, squeezing his pectoral muscles, pinching his nipples hard and drawing a hoarse cry from Steve’s lips.

‘Okay?’ whispers James in his ear, lips wet.

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ Steve murmurs, grinding his hips up into James.

Then James is tugging at Steve’s t-shirt, Steve has to let go for a moment, moaning at the loss as James pulls the shirt over his head and lets out a groan.

Steve looks at him and sees his eyes ravishing Steve’s chest, his fingers tracing the lines and patterns.

They rest for a moment on the heart with Bucky’s name, tracing the knife.

‘Your love?’ James asks softly.

‘Yes, my love,’ Steve replies, trying to see James’ eyelashes in the shadow of his mask.

‘I guess we both have sad stories,’ James says, and unzips his hoodie. He’s wearing a tight white tank top underneath. Steve can see scars fanning out from where the metal arm joins his shoulder, still red and angry looking.

James looks at him for a moment, a breath, forever, then pulls the tank top off.

His chest is broad and full and hairless. His thick pectoral muscles curve, marked by brownish nipples, hard and pointed in the warm air of the room. Steve moves his hands up over the thick, hard muscle of his stomach, squeezes those soft, muscled tits in his hands, pinches James’ nipples and tugs out a pained cry from those pink lips.

Steve can feel desperate desire under his fingernails, setting his teeth on edge. He wants to claw red lines over James’ olive skin, bite him until he bleeds. Steve’s breath is ragged in his ears and under his fingers he feels James heart pounding.

Steve traces over the scars, to the edge of the metal arm. James is staring at him; Steve feels the trembling of his muscles, even though he can read nothing in his eyes.

‘May I?’ Steve asks. James nods jerkily, leaning down and pressing both his arms on Steve’s shoulders. Steve runs his fingers down both of James’ arms, feeling the smooth warmth of his flesh, the neutral temperature of the arm. The plates shift and whir, and Steve remembers how those fingers felt around his neck. He shivers.

James whines a little and presses his cock against Steve’s again. His panting is suddenly loud in Steve’s ears.

Their eyes meet – James’ looking blue one moment, grey another. Then James is dropping his head down to meet Steve’s lips again, kissing messy and hungry and tasting a little like tears. Steve wraps his arms around him and pulls him tight and close, their torsos pressing hot and damp together, their cocks still separated by rough fabric, the rough sensation sparking new fires through Steve’s belly and groin.

James lifts up a little, keeping his metal hand pressing Steve down, his right hand scrabbling to tug Steve’s pants down.

Steve hears his own voice murmuring _yes please sweetheart, beautiful, so beautiful, wanna feel you_ hears James almost softly sobbing _steve steve steve steve._ Steve pulls at James’ pants, at his boxers and _oh fuck yes_ their cocks are pressing together wet with pre-come.

Steve wraps their cocks up in his giant, calloused hand. Made for this. He was made for this. Made to hear James whimper into his neck, lips wet and eyes damp, silk like water on Steve’s skin. They’re both thrusting clumsy and desperate. The room is full of ragged grunts and the slick and smack of skin. Steve squeezes tighter, wipes his thumb against the tips of their cocks and James’ high pitch wail makes sweet music with Steve’s throaty groan and they’re coming and coming, pumping wet and shuddering into Steve’s fist.

Steve is shaking still as he lets go, unthinking raising his hand to James face. James opens his perfect, glistening mouth and takes in two of Steve’s fingers, licking and sucking, then running his tongue over Steve’s hand, lapping up their intermingled juices.

‘Oh baby,’ Steve says, ‘oh doll, you’re so pretty, so perfect for me.’

James licks his lips and smiles down at Steve, still lying back in the pillows, shoulder bruising beneath a metal palm.

James undulates his hips a little and Steve throws his head back. Still hard. They’re both still hard. Pants barely down. James is staring at him, lips parted a little, as if surprised by his own body.

‘What… what do you want?’ Steve asks. _Anything, I’ll give you anything_.

‘I don’t… I don’t know,’ whisper James. Steve strokes a hand through that soft curtain of hair, soothing him, hearing the fear in his voice, seeing it in the flicker of his eyes beneath the mask.

James looks down at where their cocks still press together. Steve looks too, seeing the curve of James’ shaft – pink and throbbing. Circumcised. Thick and perfect.

‘I think I want our pants off,’ says James. Steve huffs a laugh.

James stands up, legs still either side of Steve and shimmies off his sweatpants and silk boxers, stepping gracefully out of each leg with perfect balance. Steve wriggles out of his own pants. He’s not wearing underwear, but James is frowning at his own briefs.

Steve rolls to the side and grabs the lube off his nightstand, where he’d put it with some vague idea of jerking off before he went to sleep.

He rolls back and gazes up at James – those thick legs with ropes of muscle, balls nestled tight between his massive thighs, the curve of his cock more pronounces now – his whole body hairless. James stares down at Steve, who blushes now, feeling the pink spread all the way down, his cock twitching under James’ heavy gaze.

‘Whatever you want,’ Steve repeats.

James drops again.

‘I want you –’ he pauses and grinds down a little on Steve’s left thigh. Steve can feel the press of his scrotum, the parting of his crack as he wriggles against Steve. ‘I want you _in_ me,’ he finishes breathily, tongue darting between his lips.

Steve grabs him and pulls him down for another kiss, biting those pink lips, fucking his tongue into James warm, wet mouth. James writhes against Steve’s leg and Steve grabs the lube, flicking the top and coating his fingers without looking.

He traces a dry finger down James’ spine, over his tailbone. James pulls back a little, and Steve watches his face. Steve touches his thumb to James’ tight, quivering hole and presses gently. James hisses and blinks, lips parted. Then Steve pulls James’ ass cheek back slightly with his thumb and presses his coated index finger of his other hand into James – slowly, so slowly. James keens and presses down eagerly, hungrily. Steve groans as he feels James’ walls resisting him, then pulling him in.

‘More,’ James demands, voice wet and husky. Steve is helpless to refuse, thrusting a second finger in fast and deep, wrenching a moan from James he would die to hear again. Steve scissors and thrusts. The heat of James is so much. The grind of his hips. His whisper. _More more more_.

A third finger, then a fourth. James is so tight. His teeth are clenching. His moans, his cries are broken. He’s pulling off, fumbling for the lube. Steve nearly comes again when James’ hand grabs his cock, pumping it and coating it. Steve is clenching his teeth, arching his back. Then James is reaching back, guiding Steve’s cock to press against his loose, wet hole.

Steve knows his cock is bigger, longer than his fingers, and watches transfixed as James breathes deeply and lowers himself down in one smooth movement. They both shout out in unison, James trembling around Steve, Steve almost weeping at the feel of James all around him. He’s here, he’s here, where he’s meant to be.

They pause for one moment, for eternity, James’ body adjusting and shifting, Steve’s cock pulsing.

Then James raises himself with those rippling thighs and impales himself again. Steve just lies back and watches, at first – James’ thighs flexing, his head thrown back and neck exposed, one hand behind him on Steve’s leg, the metal hand splayed over Steve’s belly.

It’s too much. It’s too much that they’re here. How alive they are when they have been a hair’s breadth from death. Their moans and grunts, their whispered endearments, the squelch and smack of their bodies moving together.

Steve gives a savage growl and grabs James’ hips and drives up to meet him bearing down. James howls and then they’re fucking as hard and as fast they can. Steve’s muscles burn and his nails break flesh. James’ head is lolling loose on his shoulders and he’s babbling nonsense. Steve can see his muscles quivering, sweat glistening in the lamplight.

Steve grabs James and flips them over, pressing James’ wrists together over his head. For one moment James strains against him with all his might, metal arm whining high pitched and urgent. Steve bears down with all his strength and James gives a delighted moan and releases, whole body loose.

Steve does start crying then, at the feel of James so pliant beneath him, the feel of his tight walls around Steve’s cock. He pushes James’ right knee to his shoulder and fucks in deep so deep and James sobs with pleasure. Steve comes with every nerve of his body, filling James with his come then fucking him through it.

‘You’re so wet for me, baby, so wet, so full of me.’ Steve bites down on James’ outstretch neck, the rope of his neck, the hollow of his collarbone filling with pink tinged sweat.

Steve moves his hand down, though James’ hands stay there, tangled and loose. Steve grabs his cock and squeezes, angles his hips a little higher to drive in his prostate. James can’t even scream anymore – mouth open in a silent cry as he comes over his own belly, over Steve. As he spasms he milks a final orgasm out of Steve who fucks into him a few times more with his softening cock, feeling come leaking out over his balls, onto the sheets.

Steve is wrapping them up together, tangling their limbs, pressing their hot sweaty flesh.

They don’t say anything more, both salty with tears and blood and come, even though their bruises are healing, bite wounds and scratches already closing over.

They breath together for an hour, a minute, a lifetime, James’ still masked face pressed to Steve’s chest.

Steve gently unsticks them, taking James hand and leading them into the bathroom. He runs a bath and pours in all the array of oils and bubbles. They squeeze in together in the too hot water and soap each other down. James turns and settles between Steve’s legs and Steve massages shampoo into his hair, careful not to untie the mask, which has survived this far, after all. He rinses the shampoo out then carefully conditions, delighting as James purrs under his fingers.

When James returns the favour his closes his eyes, smiling, resting against the broad, strong chest – strong enough to hold him.

Steve puts on a robe and James dresses himself smoothly and efficiently.

‘Steve I –’ James sounds pained, chewing at his kissed-out lips, cheeks still pink from the bath.

‘It’s okay,’ Steve says, stepping forward to stand pressed against him. ‘You know where I am.’ He raises his hand and runs a finger along the line of the mask. ‘Just let me know if you ever need a favour.’

James presses a soft, close-mouthed kiss to Steve’s lips. He moves like a dancer across the room, turns back once, then opens the window like a magician, and slips out into the night.

Steve watches the darkness for a long time, wondering who he is, if he’s not the man who loves Bucky Barnes from earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a short little piece inspired by some art I saw on tumblr. Let me know what you think!
> 
> For Nomad Steve inspiration see [here](https://marvelheroes.tumblr.com/post/179931632663/this-was-an-initial-idea-for-captainamerica-for) and for tattooed Steve (noting my Steve tattoos are different, but this was the inspiration) see [here](https://petite-madame.tumblr.com/post/623998572427460608/im-still-here-punk-2020-when-steve-had)
> 
> I love comments, including all criticism, constructive and otherwise. I love to have conversations about writing and fanstuff, even if I don't agree with you! Find me also on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/stuckyflangst) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/powerfulowl2)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve could ask a lot of things now. Stories, histories. James’ eyes are so darkened under that mask; like the sea hidden by the night they still murmur to Steve. But his pink lips are there, parted, dampened by the flicker of his tongue.
> 
> Steve stands and with a stride he is poised, the line of their bodies a breath from touching. He feels the tremors in James’ body – so like a rock when he sits, poised with his rifle in hand; his trembling as unexpected as the trembling of the earth as it shifts – the surprise that what seems so solid and eternal quivers and shifts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have updated a few tags - mostly just because this chapter unexpectedly involved quite a lot of Wakanda. Also note that there is a reference to past Steve/Bucky/Peggy but it's very brief.
> 
> Thank you for the lovely kudos and comments! By the way, the title is a slightly altered quote from the classic T.Rex song 'Life's a Gas'.
> 
> EDIT 24/11: I've made a few little tweaks to the story. I felt like I had let the tattoo theme down in this chapter, so I have added a few touches of colour, if you will.

_James knows he shouldn’t follow the murmurs of his blood, the whispers of his skin._

_But he does, he did._

_His body knows now, remembers now, hot liquid pleasure. A better kind of forgetting. Heat and sensation rising to wipe everything from his mind; nothing like the cold and the empty pain._

_Steve’s hands are strong and braid pain and pleasure together in bright, pulsing strands. His body glows – the blond hair gold in the light._

_His hands in James’ hair, the solidity of his body cradling James in the water._

_The patterns tattooed on his skin._

_The birds. The trees. The flowers. The faces._

_And he never asked, never once asked James to be anything other than there.  
_

\-----

James stays close to them. Sometimes hidden, sometimes visible high on a hillside. The others still call him The Soldier, but Steve calls him James.

‘He told me that was his name, Natasha,’ Steve insisted calmly when she asked him why he was calling an internationally wanted assassin _James_. ‘He didn’t choose to be called the Winter Solider, or the Soldier.’

‘And when did he tell you this, Steven,’ she asked, arching an eyebrow at him, not unkindly.

‘In Russia,’ Steve shrugged. ‘You know I talked to him in Vladivostok.’

Natasha stared at him over the rim of her enormous coffee bowl. They had crossed back into Europe, despite being more actively wanted there than in the East or the South. Things to do. People to see.

She still looked quite threatening, despite wearing a particularly fluffy pink angora sweater she had acquired in Switzerland.

‘In Vladivostok,’ she repeated, deadpan.

Steve sighed.

‘Okay, I talked to him in Moscow too.’ He gave a long slurp on his Americano. Natasha teased him about them, but he really did like his coffee large and black.

‘Talked.’ Her face was expressionless.

Steve blushed bright and warm and they both laughed, subsiding into thoughtful silence, Steve chewing his lip and Natasha looking at him with gentle eyes. The hadn’t talked about it again.

On this tiny lump of rock generously described as an island up in the Shetlands, James blends in with the rocks in his black and grey – the sky like slate behind him. Steve thinks his eyes are a bit like the ocean here – grey and secret under heavy skies, but on a calm day in the sunshine glowing blue and deep. He seems to be communing with the puffins gathering around him, as if he belonged there, as if he were just another sea bird perching, waiting, the mask he wears over the lower half of his face could be a beak.

‘Steve,’ Natasha chides him, snapping him out of his reverie. She’s decked out in her suit, lethal and smooth, hair pulled back in a braid. She and James braided their hair in similar ways. He wonders sometimes, how well they knew one another.

He looks at James and Natasha and the puffins and the sea eagles wheeling high up against the grey and thinks _fucking Hydra can’t leave anything alone anything untouched_. In the distance Sam approaches and Steve moves into Captain mode charging towards the barnacled ship hull disguising the burrow Hydra has made for itself, here at the edge of the world.

_can’t leave anything_

Later, Natasha distributes new sweaters to them all. Steve’s is a marled green crewneck that fits him snugly. Sam’s is red with a patterned yoke. He’s grinning widely, possibly because Natasha has chosen to coordinate with him in yellow with a matching pattern.

Steve knows she has gifts for Wanda and Vision tucked away, and something garish and purple for Clint.

Later, when he’s alone in his room, sitting on a solid, ancient bed that is too short for him, he finds a neatly wrapped packaged marked _James_.

Steve sighs and runs his hands across the tissue paper. Every time he has a room alone he sits like this, watching the window. Tonight he can hear the rain, the howl and whimper of the wind. He rests his head in his too big hands his body too big for the small bed that once would have been huge to him. Here the world hasn’t been rendered oversized; remembers the way people used to be made.

_the shape the colour of his eyes over the mask when his mouth is covered  
the shape of his chin his lips when his eyes are covered  
the shape of –_

The door hisses and clicks and Steve turns his head. He locked it.

James is wearing the mask over his eyes again. He’s layered in grey sweatpants, a thick fleecy black hoody. His hair is longer and out now – holding the waves of the braid as it tumbles around his face, down his back.

James closes the door with a whisper and stands, head tilted, lips red and a little chapped from the wind.

Breath rushes out of Steve.

‘Hello James,’ he says, his voice steady and low, as if his ribs weren’t crushing his heart.

‘Steve,’ James replies, voice liquid as the ocean, breathy as the wind.

‘I think Natasha got you a gift,’ Steve pats the package on the bed beside him. James pads across the room, wary and graceful. He settles beside Steve, their bodies not quite touching, and places the parcel on his lap.

He carefully unsticks the tape and unwraps the paper, fingers calloused and strong. Steve’s skin longs to be mapped by them.

James holds up the sweater and a delightful chuckle bubbles from his lips. Steve looks and laughs too – a black knit with a large puffin on the front, head turned to the side.

James refold it gently and stands and places it on a chair.

‘Say thanks for me.’

Steve could ask a lot of things now. Stories, histories. James’ eyes are so darkened under that mask; like the sea hidden by the night they still murmur to Steve. But his pink lips are there, parted, dampened by the flicker of his tongue.

Steve stands and with a stride he is poised, the line of their bodies a breath from touching. He feels the tremors in James’ body – so like a rock when he sits, poised with his rifle in hand; his trembling as unexpected as the trembling of the earth as it shifts – the surprise that what seems so solid and eternal quivers and shifts.

Steve presses his lips softly to James’ mouth, hearing their breath catch in unison, the rumble in his own throat blending with the moan in James’. They stay there for a moment, each breathing the other in. Steve can hear James’ heart flutter, hear his own heart throb full and fast in response. Desire rises in him – the shape of a bird sitting warm and shaking in his cupped hands.

He cups James’ face and flicks his tongue across the seam of his lips, presses their bodies together.

They are both here. Both warm, and alive. The wind is cold and howling outside. The rain lashes the window pane but this building is old and solid and built for this. The Hydra base is hollowed out, its dead interred. The ship remains.

James moans again and Steve embraces him in a crushing grip and James is strong and solid and Steve can hold him as tight as he needs to and James won’t break.

The bed might, but the wall is solid and stone. Steve buries his hands in the soft of James’ hair, inhaling him, devouring him with hot, sloppy kisses and sharp teeth, pushes him against the white painted wall.

The sound James makes is like a sob and Steve tugs his head back by the hair and bites into the flesh of his neck.

Then with frantic hands James paws at him, at his sweater, his fly.

‘Sshh, I’ve got you,’ Steve sucks at James’ jaw, his earlobe. With deft fingers he unzips James’ hoodie, stepping back to push it off, tug off the tight undershirt. James hands are fluttering around Steve, seeking out skin.

‘Not yet,’ Steve whispers, ‘not yet.’

He drops to his knees and pulls the grey sweatpants down, holding James feet one by one as he steps out of the legs. His feet too are calloused but scrubbed pink and clean.

‘You clean yourself up for me baby,’ Steve looks up at James’ masked face, his huge, solid chest rising and falling, his thick, corded thighs trembling. James nods with a teary hitch of breath.

Steve’s mouth whispers across those perfect, lethal thighs, the jut of the hipbone where he sucks, drawing out another sobbing cry. Then he mouths across James’ smooth, hairless skin _what did they do to you my sweetheart to your dark curls_ and marks a trail with his teeth down the soft of his inner thigh.

‘Please Stevie, please,’ James’ voice is a broken whisper already _already_ and Steve takes his tight, swollen scrotum in hand and squeezes as he licks a stripe on the underside of James’ cock, over his slit. James writhes and strokes Steve’s hair, hands, metal and flesh, as gentle as they were with the tissue paper.

Steve sucks him down slowly and deliberately, tongue flicking, hand squeezing as he hollows his cheeks. He bobs his head unhurriedly, tasting the salt of James, smelling the musky warmth. James is babbling sweetly and Steve smiles around him happy so happy to taste pleasure on his tongue. His finger drifts, pressing into James’ perineum, rubbing across his twitching hole.

Steve pulls off with a wet slurp, giving his own chesty moan of delight.

He looks up over the acres of James’ perfect, scarred flesh. ‘Turn around sweetheart,’ he growls with a slap on James thigh.

James turns quicky and pliant, hands pressed against the painted stone.

Steve spreads James’ cheeks, staring in wonder at this offering, this tight pink pucker. He buries his nose in, smelling the earthy tones of James’ flesh, hearing his mortified, aroused mewling. Then he licks a long strip from taint to tailbone before lapping over James’ hole.

James writhes and quivers as Steve sucks and licks, plunges his tongue in, feeling James spasm around him. His spit drips down James’ crack, down his chin as his fucks in deeper, pushing the tip of a finger in beside his tongue. James _keens_ high pitched and glorious and Steve pushes the finger to the first knuckle, feeling James tight around him.

‘Stay,’ he commands, landing a loud slap on James’ ass and watching it bloom – matching pleasure blooming in his gut.

‘Yes, yes,’ James says raggedly.

Steve shucks of his clothes as he stumbles to the nightstand, his neglected cock throbbing urgently. He takes himself in hand and squeezes, breathing, closing his eyes.

Then he turns back to where James waits, hair cascading and catching the yellow light in the room. The perfect curves of his ass, his huge, muscled back. Open, waiting, vulnerable.

_the light of candles in a small room when the power went and shadows on skin_

Steve crowds behind James, running his spare hand over all that golden skin. He coats his fingers with lube, trickles some across James’ slightly loosened hole. Then he fucks in with two fingers, pressing in relentlessly, feeling James quake and give way to him.

‘Perfect, so perfect, take me so well,’ Steve pressed kisses where James’ hair parts, exposing his neck. His kisses are gentle but his fingers are rough, fucking in hard then curving, seeking out the spot inside which makes James arch and cry Steve’s name _so sweet so sweet for me_.

Then a third finger. James is fucking himself back. His cock must be aching too – dripping pre-come on the floor. Steve reaches around and just feels the shape, the length, the warmth _givin me a reach around Stevie_ and then slicks his own cock with a few tight pumps.

He interlocks his left hand with James’ metal one as he guides his cock to James’ entrance with his right hand. A moment a pause where their harsh loud breath fills the room. Steve moves his right hand over Bucky’s and gazes down. Then the slick squelch of Steve breaching James fucking in deep and fast and they both cry out.

Then Steve is fucking him pulling out almost all the way then driving in again and again feeling James take him like no one else can all this power all this huge body he takes it clutches at it greedy and open and undone.

‘Such a greedy hungry slut for me,’ Steve whispers, ‘such a beautiful slut so beautiful so perfect for me.’

He can’t say it can’t say with words how perfect James is so he fucks him harder like he could tear him in two and remake him and James is crying out and coming coming untouched and pulsing around Steve and he’s coming filling James’ ass fucking the come out of him again but they’re both still hard.

Steve pulls out and flips James around, grabs his legs and pushes his back against the wall fucking up into him again clumsy and uncontrolled. James mask is wet with sweat and maybe tears as he scrabbles at Steve’s skin with his hands like rough feathers and this this is what his skin wanted their hearts wanted to be pressed together like this speaking to one another through a think prison of bone and muscle and flesh.

They are both sobbing as they come again, sticky and sweaty as Steve lifts James over to the too small bed where they curl together hands whispering over flesh and saying all the things their mouths can’t make the shapes for.

They go to sleep together like that.

In the morning Steve wakes alone spine curved and cramped skin sticky. The room smells fresh like a shower and the puffin sweater is gone.

\-----

_James just doesn’t think about it. Not in words._

_On the ferry he wears the puffin sweater and sunglasses, even though the day is dark and grey._

_In the world out here he doesn’t need to wear a mask. No one knows him._

_But with Steve – without the mask they would have to face before and after._

_With the mask is just now._

_Bodies can remember without words._

_Steve's skin remembers. James shudders at the memory of seeing that face on Steve's arm. That heart over his heart._

_Steve's skin remembers. Remembers a smiling soldier. Remembers love._

_James' touches on Steve's skin were just a fleeting thing. The marks Steve leaves on him fade so quickly._

_Out on the deck the wind whips water from James' eyes._

\-----

In a jungle in the Congo Steve thinks that he was a man out of time and now he’s a man out of space as well.

When he woke up from the ice there was still Brooklyn, still New York, still Jersey. Things had changed but the earth, that bit of the earth was still the same. Now there’s just a series of places _  
_he doesn’t belong, don’t remember him.

He’s clumsy. An invader masquerading as a saviour.

It’s unclear if this is even Hydra anymore – these bases hidden in corners of the world; sometimes like here buried out of sight; sometimes in plain view in well lit offices in busy cities. Here they are overseeing the plunder of the earth – precious metals to make gadgets run. Just another company with some added technology, some added enhancements.

Maybe that’s why when the Black Panther stalks into this fight with his Dora Milaje, efficient and deadly and powerful, Steve feels shamed. Even more so when, in the aftermath, the Panther says, ‘I think you have something of ours, Captain.’

‘Please, just call me Steve, or Rogers. I’m not a Captain anymore.’

‘Well, Steve, your shield is made from vibranium which was stolen from us, not given.’

Steve stares down at the shield. It’s no longer painted with red white and blue. Just plain silver. But that’s not enough, he supposes, to save it. It too is made from precious metals plundered.

‘I’m sorry,’ Steve says, ‘I should have thought to return it.’

The man removes his mask and shakes out his curls. His smile is slow and confident – he is a King, belongs to a land.

‘You may visit us. Return it formally. If that is what you wish.’

He offers the choice casually. His mask is off. His warriors are stood down.

‘I would like to do that very much, your majesty’ Steve says.

‘Very well,’ the man says with a smile. ‘You may call me T’Challa.’

As they board the plane –– Sam with his wings packed away relaxing as ever into the pull of adventure, Natasha with her best game face on, Wanda and Vision pressed together. Steve glances back into the jungle.

‘Is your other friend coming?’ T’Challa asks politely.

Steve pauses. The jungle looks back.

James still follows them like a very accurate and deadly shadow. Still has their six whenever they need it. Often when Clint’s around he won’t appear – politely deferring to another sniper. Clint seems a bit miffed by this. _I want to meet Steve’s mysterious boyfriend_.

They’ve all accepted that Steve and James are fucking. They’re not exactly quiet, even though James never appears when they’re sharing rooms, hotel walls are only so thick.

But the others are kind about it – their jokes are gentle. They know it’s not easy to get laid when you’re an internationally wanted supersoldier. James and Steve have a lot in common. And Sam and Nat seem to have a lot of matching sweaters now, and Sam doesn’t go out prowling for company in the night anymore. Who knows exactly what’s the deal there.

So James will slip into Steve’s room – through the window, through the door. Or maybe find him out walking in the forest and Steve will press him against a tree trunk or fuck him on all fours in a clearing. Their fingers still roam, after, tracing James’ scars and Steve’s blank skin. Not forgetful – just unmarked.

Steve will bite James till he bleeds and watch him heal, make him come until he begs for mercy and make him come again.

‘Doesn’t seem like it,’ Steve replies, and they board the plane.

\-----

_James watches them get on the plane._

_He remembers so much now. More than he wants to. He knows he would have to make his own reparations to Wakanda._

_He’ll let Steve go alone._

_As he treks back to the ocean, where he’ll try to find a boat, he worries at his lip._

_The book is gone but the words, the words are still in him._

\-----

They are given comfortable rooms, clothes to change into. After they are washed and changed they all gather in Sam’s room where he’s already got a playlist on and drinks ordered.

Steve looks around the room, thinking of the meeting that brought them all here together. He thinks of Tony, wonders what he’s doing now. He’s seen him and Rhodey and some of the others that signed the Accords helping out the UN with some of the more public disasters involving alien tech, ‘rogue’ enhanced humans, clean up after natural disasters. The latter Steve himself helps with sometimes, but usually smaller, less public ones; or on the edges of bigger catastrophes. Lifting and moving things is something he does even better than fighting. 

Other than that, these people in the room here, and some sympathetic associates spread around the world, focus on the darker corners, the hidden wrongs. People come to them with stories, intelligence, that don’t make it to the UN: too small, touching too closely on someone’s personal interests.

But when Steve looks at them all now he sees that same stretched look on their faces he feels on their own. Stretched too thin across the world with nowhere to put roots. Sure, Wakanda isn’t some conflict-free paradise, but people here belong to the place – she cradles them all, despite their differences, feeds them like she feeds the trees, the flowers.

Natasha seems not even to notice – perhaps it’s been too long for her since she belonged anywhere. Wanda’s home was destroyed. Steve sees the tiredness sometimes in the slope of Sam’s shoulders when he looks at a photo of nieces and nephews at some event he can’t attend. Only Vision seems untouched, his fingers curled around Wanda’s. She’s all the home he needs, perhaps.

Steve accepts some strange cocktail Sam has created from the supplies sent up and sips on it.

He might not be their Captain, but at some level he feels responsible for them. And they can’t do this forever.

\----

Steve dresses for the ceremony in a blue embroidered Wakandan suit. He still loves blue. T’Challa said he should keep the shield until he handed it over formally. It sits there leaning against the wall.

His heart aches a little, he must confess. His suits, his other gear, has changed so much over the years. But the shield has been with him. It’s kind of a stupid weapon, he knows. It speaks to him of that taxi door he ripped away after Erskine was killed. Who is was before he was given a new name.

At the moment it looks a lot like it did the time Peggy shot at him. Which was a pretty crazy thing for her to do, he thinks now. Strange times – their blood ran hot back then. It was like their were only moments – violence punctuated by peace by hot kisses, brief couplings. Both Peggy and Bucky and all three of them. He smiles a little, at how unshocked the world would be by that now.

Now there’s only him.

_still blue eyes turn to grey full lips parted_

Here alone for a moment with an object that will probably endure longer than he does.

A knock at the door and he slips the shield into a soft silk cover.

The ceremony is in a field outside the city. Steve kneels as he presents it to T’Challa.

‘I’m sorry both that the material used to make this was stolen from Wakanda, and that I have thoughtlessly carried it for so long.’

‘Thank you, Steve Rogers,’ T’Challa replies, and takes the shield. ‘I will not thank you for returning this, as it was the right thing to do, but I will thank you and your friends for standing by us in our battles in recent times. I offer you refuge here, should you need it.’

Steve stands and nods his head. ‘The assistance of Wakanda is no small thing to offer, and we thank you for it.’

They shake hands and press their foreheads together.

That night there is a feast and dancing. Sam and Natasha are glorious as always on the dance floor. Steve would like to learn to dance, he thinks. This body has so much strength and grace and all he uses it for is fighting – and fucking. He thinks with a sigh of James, imagining that he would dance so well, could lead Steve like Bucky used to, when they danced together to the wireless in their little room.

Shuri appears beside him, flushed and happy looking.

‘Steve Rogers, you must come to the lab tomorrow. I think you are without a weapon or a shield now, and I have some things for you to try.’

Then she darts away again.

The next day she is bright eyed, and shows him the gauntlets she designed that act as both shield and weapon.

‘But these are mostly for hand to hand,’ she says. ‘I know you like to throw things long distances as well.’ She shows him over to a bench with a round disc, much like his own shield. It is a dark metallic grey – the centre a circle and two concentric rings around it. But between them run veins of bluish-purple.

‘It is of course a vibranium alloy,’ Shuri says. ‘A _secret_ recipe.’

Steve touches it lightly. ‘So I returned a vibranium alloy shield to you and you are giving me three new shields made from vibranium alloy?’

Shuri grins at him. ‘The shield you returned is a symbol. It will hang somewhere very ceremonial, particularly when delegations from the US visit. These are gifts, because you are our friend now.’

Steve grins back at her, his heart warming. He thinks James would like it here.

\-----

_James does hate the cold. He hates the Hydra mountain bases the most._

_He’s crouched behind a rock, uneasy. This base has too many entrances, too many vents._

_The Falcon is perched high on the other side, and even the Hawk Guy is here today. They need more than one sniper for this._

_He remembers spending quite a lot of time in China, on missions that seem ignored or forgotten by those that have reviewed his files and plastered his crimes across the internet._

_Steve is below him. James approves of the new shields. The gauntlets are practical, much better for close fighting. James thinks this Shuri is probably much smarter than Howard Stark ever was._

_Then suddenly there’s a crackle in the air – not vents, speakers._

_'Желание_.’

 _James goes to scream but it freezes in his throat_.

Steve hears the first word and it echoes in his mind. He learnt a decent amount of Russian in the war, and Natasha practises with him. James sometimes, too.

‘Желание’ _– longing –_

‘Ржавый’ _– rusted –_

What is this? Words?

Fuck.

Steve spins and looks up the mountainside to where James was crouched and starts to sprint.

They’ve talk about it, Natasha and him, the words. Neither of them looked at them, but it’s not so hard to remember a few words.

‘Семнадцать’ – _seventeen –_

Steve doesn’t want to know them, wants to forget them. But he never forgets now, never loses a word a phrase once spoken.

He tries not to hear. He sprints as fast as he can and he’s there so soon, so soon.

James is crouched still, eyes blank, breathing quick and shallow.

Steve pulls a syringe from his belt and with a wince injects it into James’ neck. He collapses into Steve’s arms.

‘Возвращение на родину’ – _homecoming –_

‘I’m sorry James, I’m sorry.’ Steve gathers the limp body up in his arms. There are armed people spilling out of the base below. Clint’s arrows are dropping people to the ground. Natasha is gracefully shooting, snapping necks. In the distance Sam is swooping, firing. Red tendrils curl and Vision is blasting at the speakers, at the doors.

There is fire and chaos there, but Steve just gazes down at James’ masked face, at the trickles of tears from the corners of his eyes.

There’s an almighty explosion and then silence falls, broken only by a few loud shouts, final cries.

Steve carries James down to the others and they get him onto the jet.

Natasha goes to remove the mask and Steve shouts, ‘ _No!_ ’.

‘Steve, we need to check him. The trigger words, the drugs.’ Natasha frowns at him.

‘I’ll – I’ll stay in the cockpit. I can’t – he doesn’t want me to see him.’ Tears spring to Steve’s eyes. He can’t do it, not without James’ permission.

Natasha sighs and Steve moves with leaden feet into the cockpit.

‘Where are we headed, Cap?’ Clint is the only one Steve tolerates that name from these days.

Steve presses his hands to his eyes, trying to press away the words he heard and can’t unhear.

‘Wakanda. We can go to Wakanda.’

Natasha and Sam tend to James. At one point Sam appears briefly and says, ‘Steve, I think –’

Steve just shakes his head.

At the airport Shuri is there to meet them with a little entourage. She hugs them all and asks, ‘What have you brought me to fix?’ She sounds delighted.

‘A man,’ Steve says. ‘He’s – there are words that –’

Natasha interrupts. ‘It’s the Winter Soldier.’

‘Aaah,’ says Ayo, the Dora Milaje at Shuri’s side, ‘your other friend.’

‘A broken brain, then,’ Shuri says. She frowns a little. ‘It’s a bit new to me, but machines and costumes for stupid heroes are getting a little boring.’

The medical team enter the jet, and Steve walks away, feeling his body start to tremble. He watches the medical craft shoot away and collapses to the ground, sobbing. There are warm hands around him _Sam_ and they lead him away too.

\-----

_James feels consciousness lapping against his mind. He tries to fight it off, wanting to return to the place with no dreams._

_Fear comes first. The words. They started. Then. Then what._

_He’s not cold. The surface underneath him is firm but comfortable._

_Did he dream it or did Steve turn to him from down the hill, eyes full of fear and –_

_He has no mask on._

_His eyes flick open urgent and afraid. He turns his head and breathes._

_‘Natasha.’ She raises her head and smiles – cautious and catlike as ever. If you live long enough talking about the past becomes tiresome and irrelevant._

_‘James.’ She scoots closer. ‘Good to see you awake.’_

_‘Where are we?’ he asks, looking around the warm, comfortable room, touching the thin, white, silk futon laid on the bench beneath him._

_‘Wakanda.’_

_He sighs and rests his head._

_‘Shuri removed your triggers,’ she says. ‘Well, she thinks she has. I’m here to test them.’_

_‘You?’ he asks._

_‘Yes,’ Natasha leans back in her chair and laces her fingers across her stomach. ‘Steve hasn’t seen you. Didn’t want to see you without your mask. Not without your permission.’_

_James closes his eyes with a teary shudder._

_‘I guess we should run the test.’_

\-----

James has a cabin by the lake. Shuri says this is the longest, hardest part of healing. The afterwards. Shows him all the lesions on his brain and says that he needs to rest, not continue to shoot people.

He has goats.

Natasha tells Steve all of these things.

Steve is waiting, mostly, for James to ask him to visit. He does other things. Goes on missions, Natasha and Sam are teaching him to dance.

Steve asks Sam one day why he stays. He could go back, negotiate a deal, see his family. They’re sitting on a sea wall in Norway staring at the ocean.

Sam laughs. ‘Steve, if there’s one thing I learnt when you cam busting into my life it’s that the quiet life isn’t for me. Maybe never will be. I’m happy to fight for a world where I _can_ see my family again, but I’m not going to compromise to get it.’

Steve grins and pulls Sam to his side in a one armed hug.

‘If I were still Captain America, I’d hand the shield on to you when I retired.’

‘Would you ever retire though Steve?’ Sam raises an eyebrow. He’s been practising.

‘I could retire a little bit,’ Steve shrugs.

When they return to Wakanda, Steve’s in his little apartment, alone when there’s a knock. Shuri’s there, grinning at him as usual. She really likes him for some reason.

‘I have a delivery for you,’ she hands over an envelope. Steve stares down at it.

‘Openitopenitopenit,’ she poke him with a finger.

So he does. And there in neatly printed handwriting and invitation – _Steve, I’d like it if you came an visited me tomorrow. Any time. I’ll be at the cabin._

Steve draws a breath in and Shuri hugs him.

‘I’ll leave you to stew on that, Steve Rogers,’ she says, kissing his cheek and departing.

The next morning Steve dresses in a simple blue robe and sandals. He’s sort of embraced Wakandan fashion as a way of feeling more at home here – even though he knows he’s just a guest.

The flyer drops him close to James’ hut, but far enough that he can have a walk to gather his thoughts.

He can see James as he approaches, standing barefoot at the lakeside. He’s in red, his hair tumbling even further down his back. James turns and he’s wearing the mask across his eyes. Steve’s chest tightens a little – but he can’t name the feeling. He doesn’t have his prosthetic on.

As Steve nears, James holds out his hand.

‘Steve,’ he says softly. Steve takes James’ hand in his, running his thumb across James’ palm.

‘It’s really good to see you James,’ Steve says. It’s inadequate, but the lines him thumb traces says more.

The day is beautiful and still. In the distance, the sounds of the village nearby. This is a side of Wakanda Steve hasn’t seen so much. Maybe he could be useful out here – lift and move heavy things. Everyone needs that, right?

‘Steve, I –’ James licks his lips. Pink lips, dimpled chin. ‘I want to take my mask off. But before I do, just want to tell you how much it’s meant to me, the past couple of years. I know it wasn’t much, but it was – a lot to me.’ James lowers his eyes, dark lashes kissing his skin. His hair glows in the sunshine, rich as maple syrup.

Steve breathes slowly through his nose, smelling summer and flowers and James. ‘It’s meant a lot to me too, James. I – I don’t have much to hold onto and you were – good to hold.’ Steve puts his hands on James’ shoulders and squeezes gently. Their bodies remember times when he squeezed hard enough to bruise – marks face so quickly on them both, their skin, their muscle has to remember.

Then Steve lets go and James raises his hand behind his head, deftly unlacing the mask, which falls from his face.

Steve draws a breath and tears rise in his eyes.

‘Bucky,’ he whispers.

‘I just didn’t want it to be about – before,’ James, Bucky, says.

‘I didn’t – I just didn’t let myself know,’ Steve says. ‘Of course I recognised you. I know all your parts.’ Steve touches Bucky’s face – those cheekbones always partially obscured, the unbroken line of his jaw. ‘But I didn’t let myself know; because you didn’t want it.’

‘Steve –’ Bucky puts a hand over his, leaning into the pressure.

‘I know, I know. Terrible past, bad things, all those years yada yada.’ Steve presses a kiss to Bucky’s metal hand. ‘It just, it just doesn’t matter. We’re here. Alive. Now.’

Bucky groans and presses his face into Steve’s neck, mouth and eyes damp. Steve growls and pulls him into a crushing hug, rocking him back and forth.

And what a thing it is to cradle Bucky’s face in his hands again these hands that are exactly the right size for this. To press their lips together and feel the soft warm wet of kisses – a mouth he has been kissing for almost a century.

_of course I knew of course I knew of course I knew you my love_

Their robes slip off so easily and the sun is warm on their bare skin. James is golden brown from his long days in the fields while Steve glows white - but wreathed with colours. He watches his hands trace across Bucky’s torso – more slender now, lean and muscled from work, still carrying his scars like stories. The callouses on his palms are patterned differently – by work not war.

Steve wants this Bucky, this James, like he wanted all the others. We emerge from the world, he thinks to himself, from our pasts, our places, but all of that is contained in the now of who we are here. In our flesh, in our bones.

He presses kisses to James’ chest, sucks at the tender bugs of his nipples, licks each scar, each freckle.

‘Steve, Steve please,’ Bucky tugs him up and Steve lays the weight of his body on Bucky, their fronts pressed together, their cocks lying hot and tender against one another. Steve reaches down and smears his thumb across the tips, spreading pre-come across the soft underbellies. Then he grips them both in his hand as Bucky wraps his legs around Steve, pulls him in closer, closer still with the vice grip of his muscled legs.

They thrust in time, desperate and sweat soaked, the rough rubbing of their cocks Steve’s tight fist burning with pleasure desire agony like their hearts. James grabs tight to Steve’s shoulder, digging bruises like flowers on his skin. Bucky comes first coating Steve who thrusts hard and fast and slippery against Bucky’s oversensitive cock and coming with great wracking sobs.

They roll into the lake murmuring _sweetheart perfect baby_ washing off in the cool water, touching, embracing, kisses sweet and fresh and cold.

In the cabin they fuck for hours on the floor and nothing breaks.

\-----

_In the evening, James takes Steve to help with the goats. The children in the village think Steve is even funnier than their White Wolf – and even whiter._

_Steve lifts two up onto his shoulders and carries two more under his arms, roaring loudly. The children and shrieking, those still on the ground clamoring for a turn. He's not wearing a shirt, and the vines and branches across his back move and writhe, the nautical star shining bright and true like Steve himself._

_James’ body aches in the most delightful way. The sun is warm. Steve is here. Steve still loves him._

_Sometimes, when you’ve lived for a long time, the story that got you here doesn’t matter so much._

_Steve turns and smiles at him. On his chest, the heart with Bucky's name is now adorned with a mask._

_'Maybe I should get a wolf tattoo, hey Buck?'_

_'Should get in on your back, Stevie, so there's someone watching your six.'_

_Just the warm evening air, the twinge of your muscles, the tingle of bruises healing on your skin, the sound of your lover laughing._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like to write a little debrief at the end of all my fics. Because I am a dork. I love all your comments too - I'm happy to hear anything you have to say. You can also find me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/stuckyflangst) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/powerfulowl2). I also have a [fic rec blog](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/stuckyflangst-fic-recs) which you might enjoy.
> 
> So, what I learned writing this fic about fic writing:
> 
> (i) the hard thing about shorter fics is doing justice to your side characters and themes. Eg, the rest of Team Cap don't get much airtime, the legacy of colonialism is a big topic for a 13,000 story.
> 
> (ii) I cannot rid myself of my Natasha in knitwear obsession, and I might need to write a fic dedicated to that.
> 
> (iii) Nomad Steve is the best.


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